Side projects, and non-profit work. Always in search of the indefinable hack.

Friday, March 15, 2013

The power of crazy. (Philosophy)

The one thing I've learned in my relatively short life of 32 years, is that if you are more determined than others, you almost always win out. Intelligence, certainly helps, but it is hardly a deciding factor.

Take this guy below for example. He is obviously crazy. Red hair, doesn't shave often enough. Walks around in a thermal shirt. Good thing he is pretty determined.

This brings me to the point : Crazy people just kind of naturally sense connections between things. Now the difference in our society, between "good crazy" and "bad crazy", is really simple. When you can focus on something so granular... some deep down detail of an event or a process occurring; you are able to say some strange stuff. You are able to say things that people just won't take well without carefully wording your observations appropriately.

"Bad crazy" kind of people tend to forget that when they are done looking at those granular details, that the facts, have to be useful to the person who observed them (themselves), and that they shouldn't probably just spit out whatever is on their mind out loud. The "good crazy" person, is able to focus to that granular level.. deep down into the gears and sprockets and pull back into themselves. Then, they contemplate the meaning of it all, and re-explain it to the people who need to know why there is a problem.

There are a lot of "crazy" people out there. All living their lives.. and in the modern day, we live in a crazy world. All this information at our finger tips. People can make better decisions than ever, and become instant experts, via the technology that we've made cheap. If they are so inclined.

In a lot of ways, us nerds are responsible for the interconnection that we all share. It was always there, but as more time goes by, all of us, will feel this interconnection more powerfully. It's frightening, to be honest. Just imagining the power that each of us has to project our voice about an issue, via social media. Let alone what one person could do with a simple computer, and $300 in software, and some time on their hands.

The world is crazy and a lot of us programmers, are doing our best, to merely reflect reality. To expose the insanity that lurks in every day transactions. Imagine the term "loan". Do you imagine that a "loan" is a pile of papers in a folder? To some it might just be a window on a computer screen. To some it might merely be represented by a PDF, sent to the bank via email. Each person individually, will be able to visualize the term "loan" in their own personal context, or in the context of how their organization handles loans.

I think about this kind of thing often, and I hope, I explained the concept of something that I think about often in a "good crazy" kind of way. : )